Body of Evidence | Social Concerns
At first glance, Patricia Cornwell's second novel seems to employ the milieu of the classical detective school. The murder victims are reclusive writers; they live in old and fashionable homes at far remove from the world of everyday crime; they guard unpleasant secrets from their past; their deaths seem to involve a missing manuscript. These trappings are staples of many novels; Cornwell's American (and Southern) contemporaries Carolyn G. Hart and Joan Hess populated their debut mystery novels with literary types. Cornwell places her work in the genre, then stretches generic boundaries,...
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